Dragon Age: Inquisition

Hover mouse over screenshots for commentary.

March 2016

I played Dragon Age: Origins on the PS3 and thought it was pretty good, but not as good as other people found it. It really bothered me that there was only one dragon in a game called "Dragon Age." I played the Dragon Age 2 demo and was unimpressed. I heard such great things about Dragon Age: Inquisition that I figured I'd give the series another try. Fortunately, this game is everything I think the series should have been in the first place. It's pretty awesome!

The game starts with some sort of rift opening up in the sky, and lots of mini rifts open all over the land and have monsters coming out. For some reason you have a rift-like scar on your hand and have the ability to seal the small rifts. Various people take an interest in you because of this mysterious trait, and you eventually gather a crew together to roam the land and defeat the monsters.

Eventually you are placed in a predicament wherein the populace looks to you for leadership, and you begin a sort of Inquisition to find out which people in the land support your cause and which are on the side of the enemy. You have a castle with a fancy inquisition chair and everything. It's not a huge part of the game, but it's pretty cool.

The combat can take place either in real time or via pausing and planning each move. You travel around with three companions (with several characters able to fill those slots) and you can take control of any of them at any time. The combat consists mainly of using special moves and then waiting for them to cooldown, so you end up strategizing how you will mix and match them to deal the most damage in the shortest amount of time. I rarely played the "pause and plan everything" way but I didn't really feel the need to - maybe I would if I played on a harder difficulty or something.

The game world is absolutely huge. There are dozens of independent places to visit that are not interconnected, but each of them are very large. One issue I had with the original game is that it felt a bit small, but that is not the case in this game. Additionally, there are a crap load of quests, and people who enjoy the game will likely get many hours of enjoyment out of it.

Contrary to the first game, there are many dragons in Dragon Age: Inquisition. They are reserved as extremely difficult bosses and provided valuable items when they are defeated. I really enjoyed learning about the location of each dragon, hunting them down, and then engaging in an intense battle.

It really feels like the development studio has figured out what a Dragon Age game should be and I look forward to the next entry!

The opening screen shows these soldiers marching, so literally the first second of the game is when there is an explosion and a rift opens in the sky.
	She's one of your gang, but doesn't like you at first.	The rift in the sky.
	Headed out to close the rift.

There is something strange about your hand that can seal the rifts.
	The rifts are always well guarded.
		You can use various materials to create weapons and armor.
		Some enemies (and allies) have magic protection around them, so you have to get rid of that before dealing damage. Some have a more solid physical barrier to get through, and tat kind of barrier regenerates. These bison things have the second kind of protection, and are tough to kill early in the game.
		Each character has their own upgrade tree.



		Closing a rift.


	At one point you catch a glimpse of a giant fighting a dragon.




		As you can see, there is a wide variety of locales.



	Each dragon is very distinct in their appearance and fighting skills.



Each of the characters you can recruit have their own stylized card you select them with.







		The ultimate enemy dragon.

After a battle you get stranded from your group and wander the snowy mountains.





	Playing an open world game and seeing a dragon is just about the best thing possible. It's partly why people love Skyrim.


Nothing like sitting in your throne and judging people. Fortunately for my subjects I was always merciful. Wise, but merciful. Well, mostly . . .	Thankfully the user interface very clearly lets you know if a piece of equipment is better or worse than the one you already have.







It's always nighttime here, and it's nice.


	This dragon is frickin' hard. I think I needed to beat the main story before taking a serious attempt at this guy.


	Big Hat Logan?























		He seems nice.






	I thought this place ws awesome. I could play a whole game in this environment.












		Two?!







		I wish I had that table. . .







	One last rift closing screenshot.